Thunderbolt 4 passive (over usb) is 0.8m in length, longer cables are active, up to two meters I think, so they do exist.

How do you define "thick" or "short" to a non-engineer/tech person? Relative to what exactly?

Great, and what about non-Thunderbolt cables? How do I distinguish between power only, USB 2, USB 2+PD, and USB 3.2 cables? I've got a whole pile of cables that, without my Treedix tester, are indistinguishable re: functionality and support.